Heat management and high performance work hand in hand when it comes to track and autocross cars. Whether it's your tires, your oil, your shocks, or your cooling system, heat has a substantial effect on the way they perform.
While long-tube headers tend to help the engine work a bit more efficiently, creating some additional power, their thin-wall design (relative …
Look at that lead photo. 
I've got Swain on my V8 Miata. I have had trouble with it spalling and coming off and melting on some of the hot spots. It'll be interesting to see how it holds up for your application, especially if this beast goes on track.
I THINK it's aluminum sprayed on to the header and then topcoated with ceramic. That would explain the failure mode if the pipes get hotter than 1200F or so.
It looks great when new and does seem to cut down the heat, but durability and expense will prevent me from trying it again.
It would be interesting to see a similar test with the tube, but seeing where the heat is further down to see how far it projects down the tube.
David S. Wallens said:Look at that lead photo.
Lots of heavy lifting being done there by a stool and a hidden roll of tape :)
Mr_Asa said:It would be interesting to see a similar test with the tube, but seeing where the heat is further down to see how far it projects down the tube.
So, I actually did more tests at different points on the headers, but the readings I was getting were too inconsistent to trust the limited science of my methodology. I think the only way to reliably do that would be to apply four equal heat sources, one to each port. Going with a single source from the bottom up you can't rely on the heat flowing equally into each tube from test to test. At least that's what I was seeing. I think the way I did it there was enough proof-of-concept to make the point without having to bring in a testing lab.
Also, heat makes headers hot. Do not grab. You'd think I would learn.
Interested to see how this holds up compared to Cerakote and other ceramic coatings.
I've had SwainTech coating on my cast iron manifolds and turbo housing since 2005 with great success. The only downside is the beautiful white color doesn't last!
In reply to ZCarBob :
We need more info on this!
Assuming ambient at 80F, I'm figuring more like 30%, based on radiative only.
But then, my heat transfer is a bit rusty.
How does this compare with jet-hot? I am curious on using something like this to finish my exhaust project.
Jet-Hot is thick pure ceramic, Swain is aluminum covered in ceramic.
I use a pure ceramic coating good to 1800 degrees. It is a flat black and holds up very well with no deterioration. This is in an RX7 that shows 1750 degrees 12" from the motor. The product is Car Chemistry and results are very dependent on the preparation ( chemically cleaned and sandblasted).
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